[Info-vax] Dave Cutler, Prism, DEC, Microsoft, etc.

[Tim E. Sneddon]

Neil Rieck wrote:
> On Nov 6, 8:11 am, Bob Gezelter <gezel... at rlgsc.com> wrote:
>> On Nov 6, 6:53 am, Neil Rieck <n.ri... at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
> [...snip...]
>> Neil,
>>
>> "Written in C" and "architecture independent" are two very different
>> things. With all due respect, I will take exception to the "on any
>> platform" observation in the original post.
>>
> Bob,
> 
> I couldn't agree more. But whenever a new hardware platform appears,
> it is always *nix/c that gets there first because, as we all know, C
> is not much more than a portable assembler. Is the first port any
> good? Nope, it is usually just a very first step. Regarding your
> comments on MACRO32, I guess I was thinking more of other weirdness
> like BLISS.

I'm sure I'll get someone flaming me for this, but there is nothing
wrong with portability in BLISS (BLISS-10 and BLISS-11, yes).  Common
BLISS was used to write a number of software packages including
DECnet, RUNOFF and others (including compilers) that were portable
(or certain portions anyway) across PDP-10, VAX and PDP-11.  Not to
mention the fact that BLISS was the original implementation language
for the GEM compiler backend.  That has been ported natively to IA-32,
IA-64, Alpha and MIPS as well as cross-compiling off of the VAX.

As for the statement that C is little more than a portable
assembler...well, that like a whole bunch of other stuff gets
flung around on a regular basis.  BLISS is much more like a portable
assembler than C.  Especially when it comes to type (mis-)matching.
Almost all languages have their place.  It is the coders and their
standards that make the big difference in portable code.

> 
> I wonder what Cutler was think about.
> 

Who knows?  Although you can point your browser to the link below
for a whole bunch of information on MICA as well as some internal
mail messages regarding the cancellation of PRISM, Mica and Ozix.

     http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/prism/

Let's also not forget Titan, SAFE, H-32 and all the other designs
that, from what I understand, were eventually consolidated into
the PRISM project.

Tim.